Michael O'Halloran — The Wheel of Life
_The Wheel of Life_ "What are your plans for this summer, Leslie?"
asked Mr. Winton over his paper at breakfast.
"The real question is, what are yours?"
"I have none," said Mr. Winton.
"I can't see my way to making any for myself.
Between us, strictly, Swain has been hard hit.
He gave me my chance in life.
It isn't in my skin to pack up and leave for the sea-shore or the mountains on the results of what he helped me to, and allow him to put up his fight _alone_.
If you understood, you'd be ashamed of me if I did, Leslie."
"But I do understand, Daddy!"
cried the girl.
"What makes you think I don't?
All my life you've been telling me how you love Mr. Swain and what a splendid big thing he did for you when you were young.
Is the war making business awfully hard for you men?"
"Close my girl," said Mr. Winton.
"Bed rock close!"
"That is what cramps Mr. Swain?"
she continued.
"It is what cramps all of us," said Mr. Winton.
"It hit him with peculiar force because he had made bad investments.
He was running light anyway in an effort to recoup.
All of us are on a tension brought about by the result of political changes, to which we were struggling to adjust ourselves, when the war began working greater hardships and entailing millions of loss and expenses."
"I see, and that's why I said the real question was, 'what are your plans?'
" explained Leslie, "because when I find out, if perchance they should involve staying on the job this summer, why I wanted to tell you that I'm on the job too.
I've thought out the grandest scheme."
"Yes, Leslie?
Tell me!"
said Mr. Winton.
"It's like this," said Leslie.
"Everybody is economizing, shamelessly--and that's a bully word, Daddy, for in most instances it is shameless.
Open faced 'Lord save me and my wife, and my son John and his wife.'
In our women's clubs and lectures, magazines and sermons, we've had a steady dose all winter of hard times, and economy, and I've tried to make my friends see that their efforts at economy are responsible for the very hardest crux of the hard times."
"You mean, Leslie--?"
suggested Mr. Winton eagerly.
"I mean all of us quit using eggs, dealers become frightened, eggs soar higher.
Economize on meat, packers buy less, meat goes up.
All of us discharge our help, army of unemployed swells by millions.
It works two ways and every friend I've got is economizing for herself, and with every stroke for herself she is weakening her nation's financial position and putting a bigger burden on the man she is trying to help."
"Well Leslie--" cried her father.
"The time has come for women to find out what it is all about, then put their shoulders to the wheel of life and push.
But before we gain enough force to start with any momentum, women must get together and decide what they want, what they are pushing for."
"Have you decided what you are pushing for?"
"Unalterably!"
cried the girl.
"And what is it?"
asked her father.
"My happiness!
My joy in life!"
she exclaimed.
"And exactly in what do you feel your happiness consists, Leslie?"
he asked.
"You and Douglas!
My home and my men and what they imply!"
she answered instantly.
"As I figure it, it's _homes_ that count, Daddy.
If the nation prospers, the birth rate of Americans has got to keep up, or soon the immigrants will be in control everywhere, as they are in places, right now.
Births imply homes.
Homes suggest men to support them, women to control them.
If the present unrest resolves itself into a personal question, so far as the women are concerned at least, if you are going to get to primal things, whether she realizes it or no, what each woman really _wants_ she learns, as Nellie Minturn learned when she took her naked soul into the swamp and showed it to her God--what each woman _wants_ is her man, her cave, and her baby.
If the world is to prosper, _that_ is woman's work, why don't you men who are doing big things _realize_ it, and do yourselves what women are going to be forced from home to _do_, mighty soon now, if you don't!"
"Well Leslie!"
cried Mr. Winton.
"You said that before Daddy!"
exclaimed the girl.
"Yet what you truly want of a woman is a home and children.
Children imply to all men what I am to you.
If some men have not reared their children so that they receive from them what you get from me, it is time for the men to _realize_ this, and change their methods of _rearing_ their daughters and sons.
A home should mean to every man what your home does to you.
If all men do not get from their homes what you do, in most cases it is _their own fault_.
Of course I know there are women so abominably obsessed with self, they refuse to become mothers, and prefer a café, with tangoing between courses, to a home; such women should have first the ducking stool, and if that isn't efficacious, extermination; they are a disgrace to our civilization and the weakest spot we have.
They are at the bottom of the present boiling discontent of women who really want to be home loving, home keeping.
They are directly responsible for the fathers, sons, brothers, and lovers with two standards of morals.
A
man reared in the right kind of a home, by a real mother, who goes into other homes of the same kind, ruled by similar mothers, when he leaves his, and marries the right girl and establishes for himself a real home, is not going to go _wrong_.
It is the sons, lovers, and husbands of the women who refuse home and children, and carry their men into a perpetual round of what they deem pleasure in their youth, who find life desolate when age begins to come, and who instantly rebel strongest against the very conditions they have made.
I've been listening to you all my life, Daddy, and remembering mother, reading, thinking, and watching for what really pays, and believe me, _I've found out_.
I gave Nellie Minturn the best in my heart the other day, but you should see what I got back.
Horrors, Daddy!
Just plain horrors!
I said to Douglas that night when I read him the letter I afterward showed you, that if, as she suggested, I was 'ever faintly tempted to neglect home life for society,' in her I would have all the 'horrible example' I'd ever need, and rest assured I shall."
"Poor woman!"
exclaimed Mr. Winton.
"Exactly!"
cried Leslie.
"And the poorest thing about it is that _she_ is not to _blame_ in the least.
You and my mother could have made the same kind of a woman of me.
If you had fed me cake instead of bread; if you had given me candy instead of fruit; if you had taken me to the show instead of entertaining me at home; if you had sent me to summer resorts instead of summering with me in the country, you'd have had another Nellie on your hands.
The world is full of Nellies, but where one woman flees too strict and monotonous a home, to make a Nellie out of herself, ten are taken out and deliberately moulded, drilled and fashioned into Nellies by their own parents.
I have lain awake at nights figuring this, Daddy; some woman is urging me every day to join different movements, and I've been forced to study this out.
I know the cause of the present unrest among women."
"And it is--?"
suggested Mr. Winton.
"It is the rebound from the pioneer lives of our grandmothers!
They and their mothers were at one extreme; we are at the widest sweep of the other.
They were forced to enter the forest and in most cases defend themselves from savages and animals; to work without tools, to live with few comforts.
In their determination to save their children from hardships, they lost sense, ballast and reason.
They have saved them to such an extent they have _lost_ them.
By the very method of their rearing, they have robbed their children of love for, and interest in, home life, and with their own hands sent them to cafés and dance halls, when they should be at their homes training their children for the fashioning of future homes.
I tell you, Daddy----" "Leslie, tell me this," interposed Mr. Winton.
"Did you get any small part of what you have been saying to me, from me?
Do you feel what I have tried to teach you, and the manner in which I have tried to rear you, have put your love for me into your heart and such ideas as you are propounding into your head?"
"Of course, Daddy!"
cried the girl.
"Who else?
Mother was dear and wonderful, but I scarcely remember her.
What you put into the growth of me, that is what is bound to come out, when I begin to live independently."
"This is the best moment of my life!"
said Mr. Winton.
"From your birth you have been the better part of me, to me; and with all my heart I have _tried_ to fashion you into such a woman for a future home, as your mother began, and you have completed for me.
Other things have failed me; I count you my success, Leslie!"
"Oh Daddy!"
cried the happy girl.
"Now go back to our start," said Mr. Winton.
"You have plans for the summer, of course!
I realized that at the beginning.
Are you ready to tell me?"
"I am ready to ask you," she said.
"Thank you," said Mr. Winton.
"I appreciate the difference.
Surely a man does enjoy counting for something with his women."
"Spoiled shamelessly, dearest, that's what you are," said Leslie.
"A spoiled, pampered father!
But to conclude.
Mr. Swain helped you.
Pay back, Daddy, no matter what the cost; pay _back_.
You help _him_, I'll help _you!
_ My idea was this: for weeks I've foreseen that you wouldn't like to leave business this summer.
Douglas is delving into that investigation Mr. Minturn started him on and he couldn't be dragged away.
He's perfectly possessed.
Of course where my men are, like Ruth, 'there will be I also,' so for days I've been working on a plan, and now it's all finished and waiting your veto or approval."
"Thrilling, Leslie!
Tell quickly.
I'm all agog!"
"It's this: let's not go away and spend big sums on travel, dress, and close the house, and throw our people out of work.
Do you realize, Daddy, how long you've had the same housekeeper, cook, maid and driver?
Do you know how badly I'd feel to let them go, and risk getting them back in the fall?
My scheme is to rent, for practically nothing, a log cabin I know, a little over an hour's run from here--a log cabin with four rooms and a lean-to and a log stable, beside a lake where there is grand fishing and swimming."
"But Leslie----" protested Mr. Winton.
"Now listen!"
cried the girl.
"The rent is nominal.
We get the house, stable, orchard, garden, a few acres and a rented cow.
The cabin has two tiny rooms above, one for you, the other for Douglas.
Below, it has a room for me, a dining-room and a kitchen.
The big log barn close beside has space in the hay-mow for the women, and in one side below for our driver, the other for the cars.
Over the cabin is a grapevine.
Around it there are fruit trees.
There is a large, rich garden.
If I had your permission I could begin putting in vegetables tomorrow that would make our summer supply.
Rogers----" "You are not going to tell me Rogers would touch a garden?"
queried Mr. Winton.
"I am going to tell you that Rogers has been with me in every step of my investigations," replied Leslie.
"Yesterday I called in my household and gave them a lecture on the present crisis; I found them a remarkably well-informed audience.
They had a very distinct idea that if I economized by dismissing them for the summer, and leaving the house with a caretaker, what it would mean to _them_.
Then I took my helpers into the car and drove out the Atwater road--you know it well Daddy, the road that runs smooth over miles of country and then instead of jumping into a lake as it seems to be going to, it swings into corduroy through a marsh, runs up on a little bridge spanning the channel between two lakes, lifts to Atwater lake shore, than which none is more lovely--you remember the white sand floor and the clean water for swimming--climbs another hill, and opposite beautiful wood, there stands the log cabin I told you of, there I took them and explained.
They could clean up in a day; Rogers could plant the garden and take enough on one truck load, for a beginning.
We may have wood for the fireplace by gathering it from the forest floor.
Rogers again!"
"Are you quite _sure_ about Rogers?"
"Suppose you ride with him going down and ask him yourself," suggested Leslie.
"Rogers is anxious to hold his place.
You see it's like this: all of them get regular wages, have a chance at the swimming, rowing, gardening and the country.
The saving comes in on living expenses.
Out there we have the cow, flour, fish, and poultry from the neighbours, fresh eggs, butter and the garden--I can cut expenses to one-fourth;
lights altogether.
Moonshine and candles will serve; cooking fuel, gasoline.
Daddy will you go to-night and see?"
"No, I won't go to-night and see, I'll go swim and fish," said Mr. Winton.
"Great Heavens, Leslie, do you really mean to live all _summer_ beside a lake, where a man can expand, absorb and exercise?
I must get out my fishing tackle.
I wonder what Douglas has!
I've tried that lake when bass were slashing around wild thorn and crab trees shedding petals and bugs.
It is man's sport there!
I like black bass fishing.
I
remember that water.
Fine for swimming!
Not the exhilaration of salt, perhaps, but grand, clean, old northern Indiana water, cooled by springs.
I love it!
Lord, Leslie!
Why don't we _own_ that place?
Why haven't we homed there, and been comfortable for years?"
"I shall go ahead then?"
queried Leslie.
"You shall go a-hurry, Miss, hurry!"
cried Mr. Winton.
"I'll give you just two days.
One to clean, the other to move; to-morrow night send for me.
I want a swim; and cornbread, milk, and three rashers of bacon for my dinner and nothing else; and can't the maids have my room and let me have a blanket on the hay?"
"But father, the garden!"
cautioned Leslie.
"Oh drat the garden!"
cried Mr. Winton.
"But if you go dratting things, I can't economize," the girl reminded him.
"Rogers and I have that garden down on paper, and it's _late_ now."
"Leslie, don't the golf links lie half a mile from there?"
"Closer Daddy," said the girl, "right around the corner."
"I don't see why you didn't think of it before," he said.
"Have you told Douglas?"
"Not a word!"
exclaimed Leslie.
"I'm going to invite him out when everything is in fine order."
"Don't make things fine," said Mr. Winton.
"Let's have them rough!"
"They will be rough enough to suit you, Daddy," laughed Leslie, "but a few things have got to be done."
"Then hurry, but don't forget the snake question."
"People are and have been living there for generations; common care is all that is required," said Leslie.
"I'll be careful, but if you tell Bruce until I am ready, I'll never forgive you."
Mr. Winton arose.
"'Come to me arms,'" he laughed, spreading them wide.
"I wonder if Douglas Bruce knows what a treasure he is going to possess!"
"Certainly not!"
said Leslie emphatically.
"I wouldn't have him know for the world!
I am going to be his progressive housekeeping party, to which he is invited every day, after we are married, and each day he has got a new surprise coming, that I hope he will like.
The woman who endures and wears well in matrimony is the one who 'keeps something to herself.'
It's my opinion that modern marriage would be more satisfactory if the engaged parties would not come so nearly being married, for so long before they are.
There is so little left for afterward, in most cases, that it soon grows monotonous."
"Leslie, where did you get all of this?"
he asked.
"I told you.
From you, mostly," explained the girl, "and from watching my friends.
Go on Daddy!
And send Rogers back soon!
I want to begin buying radish seed and onion sets."
So Leslie telephoned Douglas Bruce that she would be very busy with housekeeping affairs the coming two days.
She made a list of what would be required for that day, left the maids to collect it, and went to buy seeds and a few tools; then returning she divided her forces and leaving part to pack the bedding, old dishes and things absolutely required for living, she took the loaded car and drove to Atwater Lake.
The owner of the land, a cultured, refined gentleman, who spoke the same brand of English used by the Wintons, and evinced a knowledge of the same books, was genuinely interested in Leslie and her plans.
It was a land owner's busiest season, but he spared a man an hour with a plow to turn up the garden, and came down himself and with practiced hand swung the scythe, and made sure about the snakes.
Soon the maids had the cabin walls swept, the floors scrubbed, the windows washed, and that was all that could be done.
The seeds were earth enfolded in warm black beds, with flower seeds tucked in for borders.
The cut grass was raked back, and spread to dry for the rented cow.
When nothing further was to be accomplished there, they returned to Multiopolis to hasten preparations for the coming day.
It was all so good Leslie stopped at her father's office and poured a flood of cloverbloom, bird notes and water shimmer into his willing ears.
She seldom went to Douglas Bruce's offices, but she ran up a few moments to try in person to ease what she felt would be disappointment in not spending the evening with her.
The day would be full far into the night with affairs at home, he would notice the closing of the house, and she could not risk him spoiling her plans by finding out what they were, before she was ready.
She found him surrounded with huge ledgers, delving and already fretting for Mickey.
She stood laughing in his doorway, half piqued to find him so absorbed in his work, and so full of the boy he was missing, that he seemed to take her news that she was too busy to see him that night with quite too bearable calmness; but his earnestness about coming the following night worked his pardon, so Leslie left laughing to herself over the surprise in store for him.
Bruce bent over his work, praying for Mickey.
Everything went wrong without him.
He was enough irritated by the boy who was not Mickey, that when the boy who was Mickey came to his door, he was delighted to see him.
He wanted to say: "Hello, little friend.
Come get in the game, quickly!"
but two considerations withheld him: Mickey's manners were a trifle too casual; at times they irritated Douglas, and if he took the boy into his life as he hoped to, he would come into constant contact with Leslie and her friends, who were cultured people of homing instincts.
Mickey's manners must be polished, and the way to do it was not to drop to his level, but to improve Mickey.
And again, the day before, he had told Mickey to sit down and wait until an order was given him.
To invite him to "get in the game" now, was good alliteration; it pleased the formal Scotch ear as did many another United States phrase of the street, so musical, concise and packed with meaning as to become almost classic; but in his heart he meant as Mickey had suspected, "to do him good"; so he must lay his foundations with care.
What he said was a cordial and cheerful, "Good morning!"
"Noon," corrected Mickey.
"Right ye are!
Good it is!
What's my job?
'Scuse me!
I won't ask that again!"
"Plenty," Douglas admitted, "but first, any luck with the paper route?"
"All over but killing the boy I sold it to, if he doesn't do right.
I
ain't perfectly crazy about him.
He's a papa's boy and pretty soft; but maybe he'll learn.
It was a fine chance for me, so I soaked it."
"To whom did you sell, Mickey?"
asked Douglas.
"To your driver, for his boy," answered Mickey.
"We talked it over last night.
Say, was your driver 'the same continued,' or did you detect glimmerings of beefsteak and blood in him this morning?"
"Why?"
asked Douglas curiously.
"Oh he's such a stiff," explained Mickey.
"He looks about as lively as a salted herring."
"And did you make an effort to enliven him, Mickey?"
"Sure!"
cried Mickey.
"The operation was highly successful!
The patient made a fine recovery.
Right on the job, right on the street, right at the thickest traffic corner, right at 'dead man's crossing,' he let out a whoop that split the features of a copper who hadn't smiled in years.
It was a double play and it worked fine.
What I want to know is whether it was fleeting or holds over."
"It must be 'over,' Mickey," said Douglas.
"Since you mention it, he opened the door with the information that it was a fine morning, while I recall that there was colour on his face, and light in his usually dull eyes."
"Good!"
cried Mickey.
"Then there's some hope that his kid may go and do likewise."
"The boy who takes your route has to smile, Mickey?"
"Well you see most of my morning customers are regulars, so they are used to it," said Mickey.
"The minute one goes into his paper, he's lost 'til knocking off time; but if he starts on a real-wide-a-wake-soulful smile, he's a chance of reproducing it, before the day is over, leastwise he has _more_ chance than if he never smiles."
"So it is a part of the contract that the boy smiles at his work?"
questioned Douglas.
"_It is so!
_" exclaimed Mickey.
"I asked Mr. Chaffner at the _Herald_ office what was a fair price for my route.
You see I've sold the _Herald_ from the word go, and we're pretty thick.
So he told me what he thought.
It lifted my lid, but when I communicated it to Henry, casual like, he never batted an eye, so I am going to try his boy 'til I'm satisfied.
If he can swing the job it's a go."
"Your customers should give you a vote of thanks!"
"And so they will!"
cried Mickey.
"You see the men who buy of me are the top crust of Multiopolis, the big fine men who can smile, and open their heads and say a pleasant word, and they like to.
It does them good!
I live on it!
